Curse of the Spirit Spider
by NursingSchoolGrad
Summary: Ever since his head became a flaming skull, Spider-man found some things harder than before. Luckily, he has friends to help him out. Spirit-spider origin challenge.


_Note: quasi comic-based compliant. Part of the Spirit Spider challenge with Khebidecia. Check out her story, _Flamin' Skulls of Fashion!_ Also, Dr. Strange fans, I'm sorry for writing the doctor with a worse bedside manner than he already has. Posted May 21, 2019. If you read this story on AO3 you can see screenshots I saved from the PS4 Spider-man game as illustrations._

* * *

As soon as Johnny Storm returned from space with his family, he went back home to the Baxter Building and slept like a log and binge-watched _Dude Perfect_. He wasn't quite ready to go back to the pace of city life just yet. Despite his paparazzi and chick-loving nature, space was calmer, and the only people he had to impress was the most perfectly unconventional family in the world. For those who are unfamiliar with the Fantastic Four, they are extremely close. It all started when Reed Richards decided to pursue his desire to visit outer space and stole a rocket with his now wife Susan Storm Richards, his brother-in-law Johnny Storm, and his best friend Ben Grimm. They were hit by cosmic rays, leaving Reed with the ability to move as if he were elastic and stretch through the skies, Susan with the ability to turn invisible and use force fields, Ben Grimm with super-strength and a rock-hard exterior he would gladly trade away, and finally, Johnny Storm with the ability to spontaneously combust and fly through the sky like a rocket without hurting himself.

Since then, Reed and Susan had gotten married and had two children. After that things had gotten crazy and they'd fostered a bunch of alien and human kids. They'd been spread so thin that even the reckless Johnny had to be a bit more responsible and cut back on his pranks. The family had gone off into space – just the six of them – on a sort of superhero road trip.

Even while surrounded by each other, they did begin to miss the other heroes again. To one, in particular, they felt a special bond. It was Peter Parker A.K.A. Spider-man. Peter was very shy and hardly told anyone who he was, but he'd grown close to the Fantastic Four and shared his secret with them. Sometimes he'd gone on missions with them and they'd even made him a member of the Fantastic Four when Johnny had been gone.

So, that was why Johnny was shocked to see what was on the TV screen. He had been binge-watching, of course, but somehow the connection had broken and it turned to the news. On the screen was a white suited Spider-man. Peter was stopping a thug and yelling out his usual wisecracks in his familiar and much missed voice that were hard to even hear in the midst of the fighting. But he'd changed. His suit looked like it was sinew-y and his face… well the thing was, he didn't have a face, he had a skull. A real skull. The eye-sockets were empty and blue flames flickered around his head.

"Flame on!" Johnny said in disbelief, turning his flames on around his own head as well. Somehow Peter had gotten his powers as well. He switched into a swankier outfit because fire-proof gym-shorts were somehow not all the rage. He was wearing his blue super-suit, for old-time's sake.

**4**

It wasn't long before he was flying down Delancey Street and caught up with Spider-man.

"Spidey," Johnny said. "Imitation is flattery and all that, but don't you think that you're rifting my style?"

"Torch!" Peter said. "Back from space already? Got tired of those powers not working in a vacuum?"

"Pete," Johnny said, flying as close as he could without scorching Spider-man. "What _happened?"_

"Well, a lot of things. First I was mind-swapped, then Captain Marvel and Iron-man had another civil war, and also somewhere along the line our universe merged with another one called 1610. Does that make any sense?"

"No, I haven't had time to catch up on all that, I mean, what happened to your _head?" _Johnny said.

"Oh," said Peter. He climbed up onto the roof and sat down, as if to get more privacy away from the crowded streets. "Well, compared to everything else that's happened…"

"It's your head." Johnny said. "And here you were calling me 'flame-brain'."

Peter chuckled and Johnny landed on the roof, turning his flame off and poking Peter on the forehead.

"Those are real flames." Johnny said, feeling the heat radiating off Peter's skull.

"Yeah." Peter said. "I have to use metal pillow now."

"Can you turn it off?" Johnny asked.

Spider-man's eye-sockets seemed to be deeper, more empty. "I was cursed." He said.

Johnny stared at him sadly, unfortunately in their universe, there were quite a number of people who could curse others.

"A little over a year ago I went to the ESU costume party." Peter began. "While I was there, I made a wisecrack at this guy in a grim reaper costume and it didn't go so well."

_Peter recounted the story. The air was crisp and the scent of burning candles and too much candy filled the smog. Peter went into the tent at the side of the center of campus. The tent wasn't as scary as advertised. It had a few mirrors to throw off your perception and some dry ice mist. Peter walked through and when he turned the corner there was a guy in a cheesy grim reaper costume. "Yeah right." Peter said, sarcastically._

_"What did you say?" A dry, raspy voice came from the dark hooded figure._

_"Well, I mean, I could make better costumes as a teenager."_

_"But could you do this, mortal?" The figure cried and sliced his plastic-y looking weapon at Peter's neck._

_"Hey." Peter said. "Dude." _

_Peter turned to leave when he caught his reflection in the mirror. His head was on fire! He swatted at it with his gloved hands but all that happened was that he burnt his fingers. Somehow the cheesy reaper had actually hurt him._

_When he turned around to look for the reaper again, it was gone._

Since then, Peter had tried all sorts of ideas on how to stop the curse. He'd gone swimming, gone to the doctor, and even gone to the Avengers to ask for help. But no one knew what to do.

"But, how are you living as your, you know, 'secret identity'?" The Torch had asked him.

"That's the thing," Peter said. "I'm not. I had to quit my job. I live off of tips, pigeons, and rats I catch. I wrote a book too, but I had to ghost-write my autobiography to protect my secret identity."

"The Avengers don't feed you?" Johnny said.

"Well, sometimes, but they want me to join them and that's not what I really want." Peter sighed.

"But how can you _see_?" Johnny asked, looking at the empty eye-sockets.

"I don't _know_! None of this makes sense." Peter complained. "I mean, apart from my head, I'm the same, but I don't even know where my brain is!"

"You don't need a brain when you have a heart." Johnny said.

"What is this, a Hallmark movie?" Peter said and his voice cracked.

"Look," said Johnny, "We're going back to my place and then were going to find Dr. Strange and get him to fix this."

**4**

"PETER!" Susan screamed when Johnny and Peter arrived in the Baxter Building through an open window. "It's been too long!"

"Don't mention the head." Johnny kidded.

"Ooh, boy, I'm not explaining this _four_ times." Peter said.

"You don't have to." Susan said. "While Johnny was binge-watching tv, I was checking out the internet and I read your blog… you know, your post about-"

"Yeah, have to keep up the image, you know?" Peter nearly forgot and ran his hand through his non-existent hair. Fortunately, he remembered in time to keep from being burnt.

"Anyway," she continued. "I talked with Reed and he made you a new mask from the same unstable molecules we make our suits out of. Let me go get it."

She hurried away and Johnny went into the kitchen and grabbed a leftover pizza. After toasting it with flames from his hand he held out the box to Peter. "Here, dude."

Peter took a slice and started eating it while Johnny tried not to stare. Peter had some serious problems eating. He basically had to take one small bite, swallow it, and take another small bite. Johnny figured this was because Peter had no cheeks – only a jawbone – and that if he chewed the food, it would fall out.

"Good thing is," Peter joked, "I don't have to worry about my food getting cold."

Torch had just finished off his first slice when Susan came back, carrying a familiar red and white mask.

Peter gulped, took the mask, and pulled it over his head. He walked over to a mirror and smiled in his mind. He looked… a little more normal. True, the cheeks were shallow, the nose was missing, and blue ethereal flames still glowed around the edges, but his head didn't look so much like a skull. Most importantly, he wasn't permanently looking at empty eye sockets and toothy grins.

"Thanks." Peter said. "I feel a bit like _me _again."

"You're welcome." Susan said.

**4**

The air was cold when they flew and web-slung to Strange's Bleecker Street Sanctum and Peter looked down at the front door with ambivalence. He had come by once before but Wong had told him that Dr. Strange was currently in another dimension and that he would call back when Strange had found out a way to undo the curse. So far, no call had come.

They rang the doorbell and waited, silently. The Torch had turned off all flames except the ones on his head in a show of solidarity. After a few minutes, Dr. Strange himself came and opened the door. "May I help you?" He said arrogantly.

"We need to do something about _this_." Johnny said, pointing at Peter's head.

Dr. Strange waved them inside into the anteroom and Peter felt uneasy. Dr. Strange had them come into the parlor and they sat on a gaudy, wooden sofa while he took the armchair.

Peter sighed and took off the mask.

"So," said Strange. "I heard about your case from Wong, and I waited for you to return."

Peter's jaw dropped slightly.

"I didn't call because you are not going to like how I have to cure this. I knew that the next time you came here that you would be in want of my help and more likely to take the treatment."

"What treatment?" Johnny said.

"So, basically what has happened is that your head has been replaced by your head in the ethereal dimension and vice-versa, your 'real' head is in that dimension." Dr. Strange said. "However, your ethereal head burns when it touches this dimension, causing the flames and the lack of flesh." He waved absent-mindedly at Peter.

"How are you going to cure it?" Peter asked uneasily. "It's not a nasty potion, is it?"

Dr. Strange rolled his eyes. "No, we sever the connection between your ethereal head and your physical body, this causes it to return to the ethereal dimension and displace your physical head, which in turn, brings your physical head back to your physical body."

"That's a fancy way for saying that you want to cut my head off!" Peter said.

"Look, do you want a cure or not?" Dr. Strange said.

"Isn't there something else?" Peter asked.

"I could open a door and send you to the ethereal dimension." Dr. Strange explained. "But you wouldn't be able to get back."

"I have an idea," Peter said. "You could find out some other way. That guy at the Halloween party didn't cut my head off to cause this, so there's got to be a way to fix this without _cutting my head off._ I don't know what kind of a doctor you are – "

"Neurosurgeon." Doctor Strange interjected.

"- Okay, but since you are a neurosurgeon, you should know how dangerous it is to cut someone's head off." Peter complained.

"Spider-man, listen to me. I'm not cutting your head off, it's already been 'cut off.' I'm putting it back!" And before Peter could protest any further, Doctor Strange's hands lit up with green arcs of electricity that swiped towards Peter.

"Ow!" Said Peter, grasping at his neck with his hands, but he didn't burn himself, he reached up and felt his head, and his hair, and he went over to a mirror to look at his eyes.

But the mirror showed his ethereal, grinning flaming head. "No!" Peter shouted.

"It's okay, it's okay." Dr. Strange mumbled.

"No!" Peter shouted. "It's not!"

Dr. Strange took Peter by the shoulders and shoved him in front of another mirror, this one showing his real human head. "That other mirror," Strange said. "Is a mirror to other dimensions."

"You have a terrible bedside manner." Peter groaned.

"I prefer to call it a flair for the dramatic." Dr. Strange said.

"Thanks, Doc!" Torch said. "Come on, Pete, put your mask on and let's get out of here."

"See you next time!" Doctor Strange called after them, as Peter hoped with all his heart that there would _never _be a _next time._


End file.
